She's a brick house...

They put up the brick today! I am still getting used to it and trying to decide if I like it (I tend to overthink things, can you tell?). It is a bit darker than I expected, but I think I can live with it for the next 20 years :)

They also painted, and this is something I am HUGELY relieved about. All summer I had in my head that I wanted to do a "white-on-white" type of color scheme. Ya know, something like this:

Very trendy. Who would've ever thought white paint would feel so risky! I was worried that it would look like I was dull and boring and had no design-sense.

Immediately when I saw it today though, I knew it was the right choice! I love how the white of the trim and the white of the walls actually contrast against one another (just the look I was going for). Not every room is going to stay this color, but they wanted to charge $90 per room to paint them different colors, so I said 'I will do it myself, thank you very much.' Geez these builders sure do seem to be out to nickel-and-dime you!!

The cabinets also arrived! I LOOOOVE my white kitchen cabinets with the glass. That was totally worth the extra money we paid. I don't regret spending that money at all. It is so "me!" The only thing I am regretting is that I had originally selected a very bright white (similar to the door trim), then I chickened out. I worried they might look cheap, so I changed to the more creamy white. Now I feel like the cabinets "clash" with the door trim. But I know it really isn't that noticeable to anyone but me (you probably can't even tell from the picture). And anyway, we will be painting the kitchen walls when we move in, so that will probably make them look whiter.

I'm also really happy with the dark brown bathroom vanities. Can't wait to see how they look with their crisp white marble countertops!

And ya know, its the little things in life...like these bricks they added below the patio door...that just make all the difference :)

Look how far we've come now, baby...

Man, its been a while since I last blogged! After sitting at a computer all day at work, I just don't feel inspired to come home and spend more time at a computer blogging. I've also been REALLY busy with photography projects (weddings, bridals, christmas card photos, etc), so my home computer time gets spent editing photos (not my favorite thing in the world to do, let me tell ya). I am actually photographing another wedding today, so this will have to be a quick post!

I thought I would use pictures to update you on the status of the house.

Since we talked last they have...

Painted the exterior trim

Painted the siding (and added a water faucet!)

Added the fireplace.

Put in lots of wires.

Installed electric outlets.

Added the bathtubs.

Insulated.

Poured the driveway and sidewalk.

Put up the drywall.

And delivered the brick and stone!

Hopefully they will putting up the brick within the next week. The house right across the street from us is about a week ahead of us, and they did their brick this week, so hopefully next week will be our turn! 'Til next time...

Moving right along...

Since I last updated they have:

Added a roof

Added "walls"

Added windows

And added columns

Its amazing how fast it has gone up! But I think the "slow" part has begun now...working on electrical and other "inside" things that aren't noticeable to the untrained eye.

Now that you can see a general idea of how the house looks, I will share the story about how we customized the exterior.

Basically, we started out with a different floorplan. I fell in love with this house. The second I saw this picture, I knew it was exactly what I wanted. I've always wanted shutters. And I like the "cottage" look with triangular roofs and the little roof windows.

So we went through the whole meeting process and were set to go with this floorplan (Plan 1). The price she quoted us was right within budget. Then she calls and tells us that she made a mistake with the quoted price and it was actually about $16,000 above our "top" budget. And this didn't include ANY of the upgrades we would want, or a fence, or sprinklers. And what is the point of having a house built if you can't customize it with a few "upgrades"?

So I was feeling really crushed. Trying to hold back tears in the meeting. It was not good. Then finally, we all had a stroke of genius. There is another floorplan (Plan 2) with a very similar exterior, but it can be built cheaper because it is one-story. Plan 1 had a flex room on top of the garage, but everything else was downstairs. Plan 2's flex room was on the first level with everything else. It actually ends up having more square footage than Plan 1, but is still cheaper because apparently it costs more to build up.

So here is a picture of Plan 2:

Same general idea, right? And *I guess* I can live without the cool flex room upstairs. But what I really loved about Plan 1 was the exterior. Especially that window with shutters above the garage. I told them, "I don't even care if it is a fake window, I just want a window above the garage."

So this is when our builders really proved themselves awesome. They got to work drawing up a plan that basically copied the exterior look of Plan 1, with the interior of Plan 2. Then they gave the whole thing a new name (we'll call it Plan 3!). So our house is one-of-a-kind. No one else has an exterior quite like ours. I kinda hope they will put Plan 3 into circulation, I think it would be cool if I helped "design" a new floorplan! :)

Here is what they changed:

• Add height to garage roof (rather than a sloping roof)
• Add window and shutters above garage
• Add shutters to the porch windows
• Add a HUGE window to the side opposite the garage
• Add natural wood columns, rather than your standard white columns

We were very impressed that they worked so hard to fulfill our wishlist. And the new price allowed us to get pretty much every upgrade we wanted, plus a fence and sprinkler system. We are very happy with how it is looking so far!